Modeling rubber covered nip rollers in web lines

Abstract

Rubber covered nip rollers have a number of applications within web lines. Rubber covered rollers are often used to nip the web against a metal surfaced roller that is driven to achieve a certain web velocity or web tension. The lamination of webs is common in web process machinery where two or more webs are bonded together under nip pressure between rubber covered roll pairs. Rubber covered rolls are also used to wring liquids from webs and prevent contamination of downstream web processes.

The complexity of rubber covered rollers is the rubber itself. Rubber is nearly incompressible. Intuitively rubber appears readily compressible but changes in shape are often mistaken for changes in volume.

The purpose of this publication include to: (1) better document some properties of rubber and (2) to examine the usefulness of two dimensional algorithms that relate the force and deformations of rubber rolls in contact with other rolls and (3) to examine the potential for extending these algorithms for use in three dimensional modeling in which the bending deformations of the roll shafts become substantial.